We’re excited to announce the latest updates to Accessibility Checker (v1.23.0) and Accessibility Checker Pro (v1.11.0)! These releases focus on making accessibility scanning faster, more accurate, and more secure, while laying the groundwork for even more powerful features in the future.
Here’s a quick look at what’s new:
Major Improvements in Accessibility Checker 1.23.0
🛠️ Improved Accuracy: Migration of PHP Rules to JavaScript
One of the most significant changes in this release is the migration of many accessibility checks from PHP to JavaScript. This improves rule accuracy by allowing Accessibility Checker to evaluate the page after JavaScript-driven DOM updates, just like a screen reader or browser would. It reduces false positives (for example, when hidden elements were flagged) and improves detection of issues created by JavaScript code.
Rules that have been moved to JavaScript include:
- Empty Link
- Empty Button
- Image Missing Alternative Text
- Duplicate Alternative Text
- Low-quality Alternative Text
- Image Missing Alternative Text
- Linked Image Missing or Empty Alternative Text
- Image Map Missing Alternative Text
- Incorrect Heading Order
- Empty Heading Tag
- Broken ARIA Reference
- Missing Subheadings
- Duplicate Form Label
- Missing Transcript
- Empty or Missing Table Header
- A Slider is Present
- A Video is Present
- Image Animated GIF
- Link to Non-HTML File
- Long Description Invalid
With this transition, we’re no longer running scans in two passes (a PHP scan followed by a JavaScript scan). All scans are run with JavaScript on a rendered page.
By moving to JavaScript, we’ve also made it easier to improve Accessibility Checker with future enhancements, like more complex density calculations and dynamic content evaluations.
🚀 Performance Boosts
- Removal of Legacy PHP Scanner Code: We’ve eliminated outdated PHP-based scanning code, which reduces bloat and speeds up scans.
- Focus and Skip Link Improvements: Adjustments were made to how skip links manage focus in our Enable Skip Link fix, enhancing the behavior for users navigating by keyboard or screen reader.
- GraphQL API for Events: Event data for Equalize Digital Meetups now loads via GraphQL, improving data fetching speed and reliability.
🔒 Security and Code Quality Enhancements
- Updated wp-dependency-installer to 4.3.14 for improved dependency management security.
- Cleaner Codebase: Many internal helper functions were cleaned up, deprecated code was marked clearly, and import paths were corrected for better long-term maintainability.
- Linting Enhancements: We improved our JavaScript linting workflows to scan pull requests more effectively and prevent syntax errors from reaching production.
🎯 Additional Notable Updates
- Added support for density calculations in scans (helps with future advanced metrics).
- Adjusted heading validation to better handle hidden
aria-hiddencontent. - Fine-tuned empty button and empty link checks to better ignore intentionally hidden elements.
- Updated exclusion lists to avoid false positives (e.g., excluding QuickMenu icons).
This was our largest release to date, with 418 commits and 168 files changed. See full change log.
New Features in Accessibility Checker Pro 1.11.0
The Pro release also includes significant enhancements:
- Conditional Ignore Button Display: Now, the “Ignore” button is only shown based on user permissions, improving workflow control in larger teams.
- Relative URL Handling for File Size/Type Fix: Improved handling of links when fixing file size/type accessibility issues.
- Optimized Query Performance: Filtering and updating logs for full-site scans is faster with new query optimizations.
- Support for Configurable Alt Text Lengths: The Pro full-site scanner now respects the
edac_max_alt_lengthfilter, giving you better control over alt text length warnings. - Security Updates: Pro also benefits from updated dependencies and security improvements inherited from the free plugin.
Why These Updates Matter
These changes make Accessibility Checker:
- More reliable: Rules now assess pages much closer to how real users experience them.
- Faster: By cleaning up old scanning methods and optimizing the codebase.
- More secure and sustainable: With better dependency management and modernized internal code structures.
Our commitment is to continuously evolve Accessibility Checker to help you maintain accessible websites with greater confidence and efficiency.
Ready to check out the new improvements?
Make sure you update to the latest versions of Accessibility Checker and Accessibility Checker Pro today!
